Three songs that were written to mock John Lennon
John Lennon was the furthest thing from apologetic throughout his career. Lennon was notorious for saying what was on his mind and would occasionally throw anything that was pissing him off into his lyrics. Of course, it’s easy to become slightly pretentious when being one of the most successful songwriters in the world, but the result was that a handful of artists made classic tracks by poking fun at Lennon’s way of writing.
Around the time that The Beatles were first breaking into the mainstream, Lennon was beginning to immerse himself in Bob Dylan’s work. The band notoriously played Dylan’s music nonstop while making A Hard Day’s Night, with Lennon’s harmonica part on ‘I Should Have Known Better’ serving as a nice nod to Dylan’s love of the instrument.
Despite a thousand other Dylan wannabes coming out around the same time, Mr Zimmerman was paying attention when he wrote ‘4th Time Around’, a track taken from Blonde on Blonde. After meeting the Fab Four, the chord sequence of the Dylan classic mirrors the same guitar lick in Lennon’s ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’.
Although some pointed out the similarities to Dylan, he always thought they were purely coincidental. Then again, the line regarding Dylan never asking to be someone’s crutch may be about Lennon relying on Dylan’s writing. Though Lennon was a musical chameleon with The Beatles, his fellow artists had the same cheeky attitude towards his solo career.
As Lennon began writing more pointed material with Yoko Ono, his former bandmate began to have some strong feelings towards the constant political propaganda. After getting frustrated over Lennon’s preaching, McCartney wrote ‘Too Many People’ encouraging fans not to let Lennon dictate how they are supposed to live their lives.
Since this was his bandmate, Lennon wouldn’t roll over and accept the criticism, quickly penning ‘How Do You Sleep?’ in response, structured as one long diss track towards McCartney for all of his problems. On the same Lennon album, though, he penned a song that got torn to ribbons by one of the kings of jazz-rock.
Thinking that the song ‘Imagine’ came across as a bit out of touch from a millionaire musician, Steely Dan wrote ‘Only a Fool Would Say That’ as a retort to Lennon’s logic. Although there wasn’t anything wrong with penning a song about the idea of living in peace one day, Steely Dan were not looking to hear that kind of dogma from ultra-famous Lennon, quickly shifting the perspective to that of a man on the street.
Although Lennon was easy to mock in the eyes of his fellow musicians, it never dissuaded him from saying what was on his mind, even when stepping back and returning with an album of heartwarming middle-aged rock songs on Double Fantasy. No matter how many times people have dragged Lennon’s name through the mud, no one can claim he was ever afraid to speak his mind.
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